Deciding to play on a broken foot suffered in first game of 2017-18 season led to long list of injuries that eventually ended his career.
If he could turn back time to the start of the 2017-18 NHL season and make a different decision, the 39-year-old might still be playing with the Canadiens.
The injuries just kept piling up for Weber after that.
When the Canadiens advanced to the Stanley Cup final in 2021 before losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning, Weber played with a torn UCL in his thumb, a torn ankle tendon, a meniscus ligament injury in his knee and then he tore his groin in the semifinal series against the Vegas Golden Knights. Weber played in all 22 playoff games that season and averaged 25:13 of ice time.
Remarkable.
The Canadiens honored Weber before Saturday night’s 5-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. He was inducted into the Ring of Honor at the Bell Centre, joining the other Canadian Hall of Famers.
Weber never really spoke about the pain he played through during the 2021 playoff run until he met with the media in Toronto ahead of his Hall of Fame induction last Monday night in Toronto. He did so reluctantly.
“That was a tough one for me because I obviously said all that stuff last week and it was like the last thing I want is for people to feel bad for me,” Weber said when he met with the media before Saturday’s game. “I didn’t say that because I want you guys to feel bad for me playing through all that. I was kind of irritated at the question again and kind of went through all the things I had.”
All those things started with that broken foot.
In hindsight, does Weber wish he had immediately taken time off to let the foot heal back in 2017?
“That’s one thing that I guess we’ll never know, right?” he said. “We got that checked out sooner, maybe you take your two weeks off, three weeks off there and then it’s not six months, it’s not the next year, and then hopefully I could still be playing now. But that’s a tough one. …Being in it and wanting to play. It’s one of those things. In hindsight, it probably would have been a lot smarter just to take two weeks off. But from what we got in the X-ray at the rink it showed nothing. So I just said let’s deal with it, I guess.”
Weber would like to stay in hockey in player development after his contract expires and said he has had some talks with the Utah team, adding nothing is imminent. He misses playing hockey, but with three young children is keeping busy coaching youth teams back home in Kelowna, BC
“I miss being on the ice,” he said. “I could skate on the ice every day just messing around.”
Weber’s body still feels the pain of his 16 seasons in the NHL, but he’s not complaining.
“Hockey has given me so much to be grateful for,” he said. “I laid it all out … I did whatever it took, especially during that (2021 playoff) run because we were so close and it was getting to that point where you’re willing to literally not be able to walk to help the team.”